How Do You Quantify Social Media Impact?

Bumps in Amazon sales rankings and BookScan data might give you some clues, but they are inexact at best.

By Edward Nawotka, Editor-in-Chief

CoverCake, covered in today’s feature story, promises social media analytics customized for publishing. It’s undeniable that social media is having an enormous impact on book publicity and marketing, but analyzing its true impact is tricky, if not downright impossible. How do you really quantify the number of book sales that result from retweets or Facebook likes? So, we do our best: looking at Amazon sales rankings (which are accessible to all) or combing the Nielsen BookScan data for clues. Yes, sometimes it’s obvious, but more often than not it’s much more elusive.

So tell us, how do you quantify the impact of social media on your publicity and marketing campaigns? So you subscribe to any of the services mentioned in our feature article? If so, what has been you experience? Or do you manually track mentions and try to match them up with bumps (or dips) in sales?

Let us know what you think in the comments.

About the Author

Edward Nawotka

A widely published critic and essayist, Edward Nawotka serves as a speaker, educator and consultant for institutions and businesses involved in the global publishing and content industries. He was also editor-in-chief of Publishing Perspectives since the launch of the publication in 2009 until January 2016.